bbradley406

>compete with a global labor pool again

I don't really think electricians have to worry about that. There may be the some shops that employ immigrants as helpers, but most electricians have spent at least several years getting their hours, building their kit and learning the NEC + local codes. It's hard to picture companies importing labor and training them for so long.

It's not what I want. I like my trade and with a few more years, some effort and luck I'll be getting there to six as well.

My point is that for every 1 successful electrician and 1 plumber on a job, there's a handful of guys at the concrete plant. There's 3-5 guys on the roof laying shingle and getting cooked in the sun. There's usually a team of 3-5 guys hanging sheet-rock. A lot of trade work absolutely does suck for the money that's offered. In some situations the money is really good, but the work is even more extreme (oil rigs, heli work, crane ops, etc)

If the plan is "be smart, learn, get skilled and successful" and it works, I am sincerely happy for those guys. I know more of the guys it didn't work for though, there's a lot of them.

Unless there is an actual effort to pay people well for this work, the shortage is a myth and you are spreading a false belief. Mike Rowe is the last person you should be listening to about hard work and trade jobs. He's correct about people getting pushed into college, but he is wrong for trying to make trade work glamorous and manly on TV.

I'm in a skilled trade and see lots of dudes getting their bodies shredded (with no insurance) for $40k a year (in HCOL). Why do that when pushing paperwork or bartending gets you the same money? Yes there certainly are outstanding individuals that can run their own small company and do well, but they probably could do just as well in another field anyway.

As long as the pay stays the same, companies are just gonna gouge harder. You'll be forced to buy worse work for more money since they can't keep good employees on. If you want to actually fix things talk to your GC's and subs heart to heart about paying their guys better

Today I ran an into an issue with Notepad while at work. I tried to open and print a .txt document for an order, and it completely failed with some type of filesystem read error. Didn't save the log, since I was in a hurry to place the order, but a quick google search didn't help at all. Granted, the file is in a Dropbox folder, so I thought could be affecting it somehow, but notepad++ opened it just fine. Sure, using notepad to type and print orders isn't the best possible work flow, but it's always worked for me in that same setup previously.

I tried to explain why my document printed with line numbers to the recipient (who isn't particularly tech savvy), and felt like a crazy person while doing so.

Looks like I'll be using notepad++ going forward, with line numbers off, and I'm pretty confident they'll respect that preference and keep shipping software that works.

As someone who is 32 and takes public transport, if a homeless person gets on my train car and smells bad enough to stink up half (or all!) of the car, they have earned the "unpleasant people" label fair and square. Yes I understand it may be their only option, and I sympathize with them but it still makes my trip unpleasant.

You might think so at first glance, but if you multiply a regular parking space (9' x 18', 162 sq ft) by the median price per sq ft of a normal house ($244) you get $36288. Obviously these figures are specific to the US, but cars take up more space than you think, either because we're usually inside them or because we're just used to it.

For a whole parking garage you need many large I-beams, tons of concrete, frequently elevators are added, etc. Not surprising builders opt out of including them when they can.

The Amish ride in horse-drawn buggies and hire private car drivers for longer trips.

I'd rather not go back to the days of horses as the primary means of transportation though.

Tires have been around for a while, but the average weight of a personal car greatly increased after the 80's. Sure there were some heavy land-boats in the 50's and 60's, but it seems now everyone is driving something 3.5k lbs or higher.

Also consider the expansion of the US highway system (starting in '56), increased freight trucking, popularity of tuning / high performance cars etc. I'd imagine more tires are getting shredded into the environment than at any point before the 80's, even with improvements in tire compounds.

>Happens to some crappy laptops. These are basically irrelevant details.

Don't most modern (>2010) CPU's thermal throttle until they are back within operating temps? You'd have to stuff a laptop inside a backpack while maxing it to get it to overheat to the point of resetting

You only get "recorded" as a drunk driver if you crash or cause a situation, drive erratically, cops are called, breathalyzers etc. Obviously I'm not condoning drunk driving, but you are looking at an extremely skewed set of circumstances, much like driving during daylight on California streets with no weather for FSD.

CNC's are good if you are making tons of templates, making furniture, or working with a lot of sheet goods. They do take a lot of fun out of the job though, as the layout and initial cuts are usually the most enjoyable and you're left just gluing and sanding finished parts.

As a timber framer, most small to medium size shops don't use one because the upfront cost is astronomical. You need a 24' bed, 5-axis head, and probably an auto-loader because the boards can weigh up to 250 lbs. If you're cranking out identical kits and shipping them nation-wide it may make sense, but it takes a long time to get to that point. Most of my work is custom one-off projects, where it would take longer to program the tool paths and load / unload pieces than to just do them by hand with specific tools. We also use green rough-sawn wood that varies in dimensions by up to 3/16", so you'd have to probe every piece somewhat thoroughly.

As Inheritance Machining showed in his most recent video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3sjsu1FPCk) it's totally possible to beat CNCs on speed alone the first time, but impossible when it comes to mass-producing. For the hobbyist woodworker doing one-off projects in their free time, I would also say it's better to enjoy the process manually.

In my state resorts have the legal right to allow / deny uphill travel, regardless of whether it's public land or not. This is for several reasons that are mostly related to safety:

- There's a large amount of people that skin up and hike here, enough to present crowding issues if it's allowed

- Grooming being done in the early morning when people want to start hiking, and it's hard to see hikers regardless of if they use lights or not

- Areas that are roped off from above can be closed for unstable snow with high avalanche risk, or may be subject to bombing operations (hand placed explosives and artillery to induce avalanches before they are caused by skiers)

Check your areas rules, many allow it under certain conditions like time of day, routes, lights, etc. It's a good idea to make friends with someone on the patrol team so you know which areas are safe (and contain good snow ;) )

While I definitely like (and mostly trust) Steam, there are some issues like songs being removed from GTA games due to licensing that make me want to hang onto pirated copies, just in case.

If there was a warthog look-alike with a hard top available, I'm fairly sure it'd look and sell better than the Cybertruck. It's already similar looking to kitted-out Jeeps which people seem to love.

Bonus points if it uses a battery and generator to power electric motors, which is a pretty reliable and light maintenance setup.

Obviously this depends on the region and weather, but in my experience the best areas on the mountain are tracked out and bumpy by the afternoon. Once the sun really starts hitting the snow it can get lumpier and tougher compared to fresh stuff, and more frequent / larger ice patches appear on hard-packed runs.

If you have a season pass it doesn't make sense to ski the worse conditions, since you can just go back another morning. There's also the desire to beat the traffic leaving the resort, which can be brutal in some places.

One of the common modifications for controllers is thumb-stick extenders that simply make the analog input more precise, not "faster". I don't think you can detect this using your strategy, since there is no change to the electronics of the controller. To the console and game software it just looks like the player is more accurate than others, and reducing the in-game look and movement speed wouldn't remove the advantage.

Some combination of heuristics (target acquisition time, moving target tracking, etc) would probably be the only way. But what if a player is genuinely exceptional - should they be punished for that?

That list doesn't include cities where the local train (subway or street rail) system connects to the airport, which seems odd. In my experience it's way easier getting to the into the city using local rail compared to dealing with parking, rental cars, traffic etc.

The only downside is almost none of these systems are in operation 24/7, with the exceptions being NYC and Chicago. If you have a very early or late arrival / departure, you just can't use them at all without waiting several hours at the airport. I wish more cities could add reduced frequency night service, something like maybe 1 train every hour or hour and a half.

As a somewhat cherry-picked example, if someone in the southern part of my city wants to take a train into the city center, the last good route with only one transfer leaves at 10 pm. At 10:40pm Google maps suggests a route with 3 transfers that takes almost twice as long (and includes the commuter rail which is a separate, more expensive ticket). The last possible option is at 11:40 and takes 3 times as long as the normal route. If we want people to use trains and subways, the service hours have to be greatly improved.

>Two stroke engine parts don't have a massive legally protected cult following like guns

Yes they do, they're called dirtbikes and a large part of America enjoys riding them. Other countries use them in the scooter form factor. Could some of the use cases be covered by alternatives like the electric Surron? Sure. Will you successfully pass a law against them in the next 30 years? Not a chance.

Comparing this to off-piste skiing or mountain biking is not fair at all. You can view avalanche predictions, sample the snow pack, and take safe and slow lines that go perpendicular to the faults when skiing. Biking you can use hydraulic disk brakes, deliberately lay the bike down and slide out, plus you should be wearing a full face helmet, spine + neck protector, and other armor. Unless you are actively trying to set a speed record or win a race there is far less danger.

"Code" is not what is stopping people from building, city zoning and regulations are. There's some things that add a bit to the cost, like GFCI outlets, multiple egress points for bedrooms, and inspections. Mandatory setbacks, minimum lot sizes, height restrictions, ADU rules, etc are what dictate what is possible to build.

You could easily describe a moderate house you desire to an architect, hire a GC and have a house built to code for $75k-$150k if it weren't for permits, zoning and regulations.

>As much as I'd love to be able to play Mario or Zelda in 4k 60fps

You can do this on PC with emulators if you want to. It's probably not "legal" but if you have already paid for a copy of the game there isn't much harm in it.

Off the grid cabins frequently use a hybrid setup, where a (typically) propane generator refills the batteries during extreme load or whenever they dip below n%. It's handled by a smart system that can optimize for house temperature, minimum propane or electricity used, etc.

This works very well because you rarely need it and propane has a fixed, predictable cost. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in CA due to their rules about generators.

Custom cabinet work does not have a low bar. You need to be familiar with multiple joinery techniques and finishing methods, even if your parts are coming straight off a CNC. Getting them perfectly square, face framed, mounted etc takes a lot of time and attention. For houses where the framing was done poorly, it takes even more time.

I believe fairly competent cabinet assemblers / installers are making $40-75 / hour depending on location. Everyone else paying less is half-assing it or doing a poor job.

It would be possible to restore an older car (late 90's to early 2000's) which have much lighter chassis, and convert it to electric power. Unfortunately it wouldn't be very cost effective until you break even on not buying gas, and I'm not sure how well insurance companies would like it.

They're not so bad when you have the pipe handle installed, which gives you a lot of leverage over the body of the drill.

That being said, even the cordless ones have an absurd amount of power. At my work we use them to send a 3-flute, 1 1/4" auger bit about 5 feet straight through Douglas Fir (drilling concealed electrical wiring chutes in columns). I've seen them roll a 10' 8x8 (~150 lbs) across the sawhorses when someone forgot to clamp it before drilling.

There are concrete trucks that hold the various ingredients in different containers and can start the mix on demand.

Unfortunately they're (obviously) more expensive to purchase and operate, but they are super neat and could pave the way towards 3d printing options going forward.

> Wire nuts are easy to fuck up

Can't agree on this at all. You twist the wires together in the direction the nut threads on, then screw it on. After it's done give each leg a light pull to make sure it's secure.

Where and how are people fucking this up? I could see using the wrong size, leaving stripped wire outside the nut or stuffing way too many wires into one nut, but other than that I'm baffled.

High efficiency houses are actually constructed this way, although the gap is not "man-sized". It eliminates a large amount of thermal bridging.

If it's worth it to the owner, exterior walls will be framed with 2x6 instead of 2x4 to allow more space for insulation.

Of course it depends on those running the server and moderating, but most of the larger Discord "servers" I've joined have extensive information as pinned messages.

I did grow up with PHP forums, but they feel a bit clunky now. I'm sure a well-made one with a more modern stack and new features could be superior to Discord for text discussion though.

One of my most memorable Uber rides was with a younger mother that had a tough child custody schedule that prevented her from working a regular job.

In a perfect world this wouldn't even be a concern, but as she explained it to me, Uber was one of the very few options that let her work when she could.